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The White Hat Guide to Recycling & Downcycling

Many of us go out of our way to buy recycled products, but it is worth asking the question “can this recycled product itself be recycled or have we just really just replaced a one-stage disposable product with a two-stage disposable product?” For instance we know that certain plastic products can be recycled into lower-grade plastic products such as wheelie-bins and garden furniture. When these wheelie-bins and garden furniture get cracked and broken can they again be recycled and if so at what cost in energy and other resources?

The act of recycling a product into a lower-grade product which in turn may not be recyclable is sometimes referred to as ‘downcycling’.

In the 1970s, a methodology for creating products which could be endlessly recycled gained a following and is currently being implemented in some European communities. It is called “Cradle To Cradle” and it is worth doing a search on the term if you are unfamiliar with the underlying principles.

Long life light bulbs

Governments of all persuasions have made a big song and dance to convince us to use long life light bulbs (Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs or CFLs), but have been much quieter in telling us how to dispose of them. CFLs contain small amounts of mercury which is capable of being highly polluting if it finds its way into the wrong place. A Federal Government web page cheerfully informs us at that “CFLs can generally be disposed of in regular garbage bins - where the garbage goes to landfill. . . You should NOT place CFLs in your kerbside recycling collection because they can break during transport and contaminate recyclable items.”

Well, here at White Hat we are not so confident. If large numbers of CFLs start going to landfill is there a danger of the mercury leaching into the water table and into our waterways? White Hat doesn’t know. Maybe some of you do. Alternatively you could recycle them and recover the mercury for re-use. However White Hat has a feeling that there are very few factories capable of doing this. True, all you have to do is get your globe to a recycling centre, but then that centre may have to transport it half way across the country in ‘safe’ condition to the factory and the resultant carbon footprint may be more damaging than just sending it to landfill. We look forward to being enlightened.

Fortunately LED lighting is shaping up to be a much more energy efficient and less polluting alternative. They are already being used in traffic lights – the ones where each light is actually made up of many smaller ones. We will watch with interest.

Batteries

The disposal of batteries is more straightforward than CFLs. Most agree that the metals and chemicals in batteries make them unsuitable for disposal in landfill although it is surprising how many people throw their spent domestic batteries straight into a garbage bin.

For domestic use in transistor radios, remote controls, digital camera and the like we bought a battery charger and rechargeable batteries. These are available from outlets such as Jaycar, Dick Smith and Aldi. Our reasoning was that if we could use a battery many hundreds of times before it had to be disposed of then that was a better environmental option than the use-once disposable battery. Now, we could be wrong. Maybe rechargeable batteries use more toxic chemicals than the use-once ones. Let us know if you have more information. It’s not a cheap exercise and it took about a year to pay for itself. Be aware that products such as digital cameras may require special types of batteries so it is worth talking to your specialist electrical store where the nerds (sorry, highly specialised support staff – God bless ‘em) will usually know.

Certain mobile phone outlets such as Nokia accept mobile phone batteries (of all brands) for recycling. Some Harvey Norman stores accept domestic batteries such as your standard As, AAs etc for recycling.

However this raises the issue – is it recycling? We have recently noticed increased use of the word ‘recycling’ to indicate ‘safe disposal’. They are not the same thing. If in doubt, it is worth asking the question.